A role-playing game development for supporting interventions to reduce household greenhouse gas emissions: Transdisciplinary pathways and challenges

Households generate significant direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Designing effective interventions to reduce such emissions can be informed by role-playing games (RPG). A transdisciplinary team consisting of scientists and social actors from other sectors worked together to develop an RPG in which technological and behavioral interventions to reduce household consumption of food, energy and water resources were studied and simulated in a gaming environment. The chapter describes some challenges and benefits in the transdisciplinary RPG development process. The disciplines involved included behavioral psychology, economics, engineering and computer science. Inputs from each discipline combined with feedback from social actors that included city government, utility companies and community members, facilitated continuous improvements to the RPG’s design.